Review by Choice Review
Large numbers of Canadian prisoners of the Germans and Japanese in WW II were murdered following their capture. Brode's book is the best available study of what happened and how the Canadian and Allied governments sought to bring the perpetrators to justice. With new archival sources, a good legal mind, yet with clear prose, Brode focuses most fully on the case of Kurt Meyer, an SS senior officer whose regiment killed more than 100 Canadian POW's in Normandy, including many at his headquarters. Meyer was tried--fairly, Brode concludes--found guilty, and sentenced to death, but the reviewing officer commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. There are few heroes in this book beyond the POWs who died, but Brode does single out Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Macdonald, the infantry officer and lawyer who investigated and prosecuted the case, despite lukewarm support from his own government and interference from Canada's British and US allies. The political firestorm that greeted Meyer's reprieve from the firing squad perhaps affected Canadian zeal in prosecuting other war criminals in Europe and Asia. Some Germans who killed captured fliers were tried and executed, and some Japanese infantry officers whose men killed captured and wounded Canadians at Hong Kong were punished, along with some POW camp guards and commandants who were especially brutal, but there was little enthusiasm for vengeance. Its lamentable subject notwithstanding, Brode's book is succinct, clear, and properly judgmental. He tells much about the laws of war and how they are obeyed--or flouted. All levels. J. L. Granatstein York University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
